What did I do wrong: The water in my bath was so hot the bathroom was thick with steam, burning my skin and I could barely see the bath taps. But I didn’t want to cool it down, I wanted it as hot as I could bear it.

Earlier Moores had said she’d meet me at the pub, but wasn’t there when I arrived. So, I got my ginger beer from the barman and sat down. The pub was busy and noisy and though I’d been there a few times before, this was the first time on my own.

From where I was sitting I could see John Edward in the other bar with a group of friends. Before the war he was a senior doctor in St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington and very well respected. Now he was working as a doctor in the army based somewhere near London. He’s very popular and everyone knows who he is. He has a reputation for being a bit of a ladies man. Moores would often tease me about him saying I had a crush on him and, it was true, I did like him a lot, but he’d never even noticed me.

I’d been sitting there for half an hour and Moores still hadn’t turned up so I decided to get one more drink. I decided I’d go back to the Nurses’ Home if she hadn’t arrived by the time I’d finished it. I felt a twinge of disappointment when I went up to buy my ginger beer because I couldn’t see John in the other bar.

I sat down and the next thing I knew he was sitting opposite me. He smiled at me but I was overcome with shyness.

“Olga, isn’t it?” he said loudly so I could hear above the noise. Goodness, I thought, he knows my name.

“Yes, it is”.

I was getting a really good look at him now. I’d never seen anyone so handsome, except, of course, film stars, but most of them were dark haired. John was slim and fair-haired and he had such a lovely smile. By now I was hoping Moores wasn’t coming because I wanted John all to myself. He told me he had three days leave before he had to report back to the army. I could see some of the other girls in the bar looking at us, a bit jealous I thought, and I felt so proud that he seemed interested in me.

My initial shyness was gone and I was surprised by how easy he was to talk to. I told him where I came from and all about my family and he talked about his life in the army. We talked like two people who had been friends for ages. He offered to buy me another ginger beer and while he was at the bar I went to the ladies toilet.

As I came out he was standing in the passage waiting for me and took hold of my hand.

“Come with me, Olga, I want to show you something.”

We went down the passage, in the opposite direction of the bar and John opened a door and we were in a small dirty yard where there were lots of beer barrels and crates of beer. He closed the door and I wondered what we were doing there.

Then he pushed me against the wall of the pub and started kissing me very roughly. With his knee he forced my legs apart and I was frightened because I knew then that something bad was going to happen to me.

I tried to push him away from me but the weight of his body had me pressed against the wall.

He pulled my dress up and my knickers down. He’d undone his trousers and by now I was crying

“Please, don’t” I said, my fists punching his shoulders. I looked at him and he was smiling and then he covered my mouth with one hand and forced himself inside me.

Suddenly terrible, terrible pain, as he repeatedly pushed himself into me. The pain was so bad I thought I wanted to pass out prayed to God to let me pass out so I could not feel it any more. After a few minutes I felt his body relax.

Again I said “Stop, you’re hurting me” and he laughed.

“It’s OK, Olga, I’m finished now”. He buttoned up his trousers and then went back inside.

For a few minutes I stayed in the same position I’d been in throughout my ordeal, leaning against the wall because I couldn’t stand up properly on my own without its support. I could feel fluid running down my legs but was afraid to go back inside to the toilet to clean myself up.

There was a door in the yard that opened straight onto the street. I tried to run back to the nursing home but my legs were shaking so much I couldn’t. I kept my head down all the way back not wanting anyone to see my tears or to make eye contact with me because I thought they would know what had just happened to me.

I felt so ashamed and humiliated and tried to think what I had done or said in the pub to make such a bad thing happen to me, but I couldn’t think of anything.

I stayed in the bath until it was cold, crying for Mammie.

******

Dear Diary

I have physical pain and yet I feel numb too. How can that be?

I’m not the person I was before. That Olga has gone. I cannot concentrate on anything I am asked to do and am always being scolded by Sister Tutor. She asks me

“What’s wrong with you, are you sick?”

I can’t tell her. I don’t tell anyone.

If I don’t pull my socks up there will be no point in sitting the first year examination again she tells me. I don’t care any more. I have nightmares now and am too frightened to sleep, because, when I close my eyes, I see it all happening again, so I stay awake.

Oh, damn and blast, I failed my first year preliminary exam. Knew I would. There was so much I didn’t understand, but, Sister Tutor says I can sit the exam again, but if I fail the second time, that’s it, finished. Goodbye Olga. Moores failed too, but she doesn’t care as much as I do.

Watch out, men about: After a nursing lecture by Sister Tutor, she kept us all behind to give us another one about soldiers and men in uniform.

“A lot of women are being assaulted and worse, by airmen and soldiers from overseas” she told us. “Care should be taken at all times because, these men have thrown away all sense of propriety because they are away from their home, in a country where no-one knows them and are taking advantage of women and the blackout, to behave how they like without fear of retribution”

Moores said she’d never heard anything so ridiculous. All the overseas men she’d met were charming and treated her with respect.

“They’re a darn sight more polite than any Englishman I’ve been out with. Of course, sometimes there are rotten apples in a barrel” she said.

“But to give the impression that all airmen and soldiers from overseas do bad things and take advantage of women is wrong”.

Moores was really quite angry with Sister Tutor.

After the lecture Ethel and I were on night duty together on the men’s surgical ward and she asked me if I’d heard about Sara Donahue.

“Yes, isn’t it sad. When is she coming back?” I asked Ethel.

Sara is in our group but she had to leave suddenly and go home because a close relative died.

“It’s not true about the relative dying, Olga. She left because she failed her three monthly medical. We think she had gonorrhoea”.

“Oh,” I said. I’d never heard of that so I asked Ethel what gonorrhoea was.

“It’s a sexually transmitted disease” said a young male patient, who had been listening to our conversation.

“Couldn’t put it better myself” said Ethel.

I didn’t know what a sexually transmitted disease was, but I wasn’t going to ask because I had a feeling I would look stupid. After all I am a nurse. When we’re on night duty and the air raids sound, we have to pull all the beds into the centre of the ward and put each patient’s gas mask on their bed. We’ve been issued with helmets which have to be worn when the bombs start dropping. The first time I put mine on I thought, thank God, the tots can’t see me. They’d never stop laughing, as a matter of fact neither could I. It was so big I had to keep pushing it back so I could see where I was going. I looked ridiculous in it.

Ethel and I were sitting at the big table in the middle of the ward writing up our reports and whenever we leaned forward to say something to each other, our helmets would bang together. After a couple of times we started to laugh and then when we laughing so much we leaned back in our chairs and our helmets fell off crashing to the floor and made a terrible din and woke all the patients up.

There’s still a routine on night duty, but it’s not so hectic. By nine thirty the bed quilts must be folded in four and placed at the foot of the bed, thermometers in mugs, equipment trays fully laid up, false teeth deposited in mugs on lockers and all lights turned off except the green shaded one on the table in the middle of the ward.

While some men snore, others light up cigarettes, not taking the slightest notice of us when we tell them they are not allowed to smoke in bed.

But we do have time to write up our lecture notes and revise. By the end of night duty, when I get to my room I’m too tired to undress and fall asleep across my bed clutching my books.

Horrible news: There’s a wireless in the student nurses’ sitting room where we all gather round and listen to the news to hear how the war is going. Before the war it was a games room but there doesn’t seem to be time to play games now, although we do sometimes play music on the gramophone.

I was listening to the radio when Moores came in. Before she had said a word I could see by her face that something was wrong. But I wasn’t prepared for what she told me.

As she sat down beside me she took my hand.

“Olga, Joanne is dead. The rest centre in MorleyCollege was bombed last Tuesday evening and it seems that Joanne was visiting someone there. Some people were rescued but most of them, including Joanne, were trapped inside. By the time they pulled her out, she was dead.”

“No, it’s not possible”.

She had told me she was on night duty all week.

“Joanne changed shifts with another nurse, Olga. Joanne was off duty. I’m sorry”. Then she repeated it.

“Joanne’s dead” .

Alone in my room, I kept repeating the phrase “Joanne is dead” as if it would help me take in the terrible news. The thought that I would never see Joanne’s face again gave me the most awful feeling I have ever had, worse than all the bombings and scares that I had experienced these last few months. My world has changed. I feel helpless – as if an invisible wall that once surrounded and supported me has gone and without it I feel disconnected from everyone and everything around me, tiny and insignificant.

I’m so lonely.

Next day: I went mechanically through my duties until the last one when I was removing the flowers and potted plants from the ward and putting them in the bathroom for the night. I remembered Joanne telling me how she loved doing this job at Paddington General because it turned the bathroom into an exotic florist, rich with perfume and vibrant colour.

“For a few minutes Olga,” she said ”I’m back home in Jamaica”. That night I cried bitterly for the loss of the best friend I’ve ever had.

********

Mammie’s (Becky) Diary

These days I spend most nights listening to the wireless for news of the war in Europe. It is so frustrating that I know more about what is going on there than how my daughter and sister are managing in London. It is months since I have heard from either of them and I feel helpless because there is nothing to do except pray.

We now know Germany is bombing London relentlessly and the loss of life and injuries, as well as the devastation to the city, is enormous. I read in the Gleaner of how people have to go to use the underground tube stations to shelter from the bombs. They often sleep there all night and then have go off to work the next morning trying to avoid unexploded bombs or fractured gas mains. How dangerous it all sounds.

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Why I Wrote ”Olga – A Daughter’s Tale”

In 1994, my mother, Carmen Browne, was admitted to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton in the UK seriously ill. As she slowly recovered I realized that had she died so too would the chance of my finding out about her past, her family in Jamaica and, of particular importance to me, who my father was information she had consistently refused to share with me. So I decided to find out for myself.

My first discovery was that my mother’s real name was Olga Browney, born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and one of eleven children from a close-knit, coloured Catholic family. A kind, naïve and gentle girl, my mother arrived in London in 1939 and lived with a malevolent, alcoholic aunt, intending to stay for only six months. However, world events, personal tragedy and malicious intent all combined to prevent her from returning home to Kingston.

"Olga - A Daughter's Tale" is based on a true story about cruelty, revenge and jealousy inflicted on an innocent young woman and about moral courage, dignity, resilience and, in particular, love. It is the story of a remarkable woman, who because of circumstances, made a choice, which resulted in her losing contact with her beloved family in Jamaica, until nearly half a century later, when her past caught up her.

What I discovered about my mother filled me with such admiration for her that I wanted her story recorded for future generations of my family to read so that they would know about this remarkable woman whose greatest gift to me was her unconditional love. That's why I wrote “Olga – A Daughter’s Tale”.